The record industry would have us believe that file sharing will ultimately see the death of music production. They would have us believe that file sharing is making the music industry financially inviable. In effect the music industry seeks to obscure the overwhelming benefits of file sharing for the consumers and creators of music. The consumer and creator win in this situation and it is this fact which the record industry, being the increasingly stranded middle men that they are, refuses to accept.
It could be argued that the music industry formed a rigid hierarchy for musical achievement. The path to commercial musical success was inflexibly laid out by the record industry and it was this path that musicians were forced to traverse on their way to fame. In effect the music industry had monopolised the only avenue to musical success and were thus able to exert a degree of control over the finished musical products their clients produced. It was an example of feudalism in a contemporary context. Record companies owned and controlled the means for musicians to air their work and thus musicians became their vassals.
What we see today with the advent of file sharing technology is the ability for musicians to bypass the gate-keeping role once performed by the record industry. Their music can be easily uploaded onto the world wide web and then shared free of charge around the globe. A perfect example of this is the path to fame trodden by British artist Lily Allen, who in late 2005 begun uploading music onto her Myspace Profile – she has become one of the most acclaimed artists in the world over the last six years.
Due to its growing prevalence around the world people in the record industry, some musical artists (ironically including Lily Allen) and government institutions have spoken out against the practice of file sharing – believing that it breaches copy right laws and withholds streams of revenue to both artists and record companies. In essence both of these arguments are linked. Copy right laws are used by record companies as a means to qualify their indignation at the loss of revenue they are experiencing due to the process of file sharing. The reality, however, is that this indignation is unfounded as both artists and record companies have adapted to ensure their financial viability in a world now dominated by the influence of file sharing. A piece of music obtained through file sharing can never compare to experiencing that same piece of music live on a grand stage. Tours and live performances by artists have increased since the early 2000s, and consumers are charged in real terms more than they ever have before for the privilege of attending such performances. What we see is the loss of revenue caused by file sharing being recouped through other means. Record companies have adapted to now represent immense apparatuses of PR and promotion.
Though the legality of file sharing is debatable due to the nebulous world of cyber law, there can be no debating the cultural benefits to society brought about by the birth of file sharing technology. File sharing has liberalised the global exchange of culture. It allows users instant access to the film, music and literature of every nation around the world. Where once the consumer’s access to an international product was limited, it has now become infinite. File sharing doesn’t directly broaden inter-cultural understanding but it has the ability to facilitate it by providing users with the means to sample the culture of other nations. I have experienced an example of such facilitation. Besides M*A*S*H, the films of acclaimed American film director and writer Robert Altman are unavailable in Australia due to the convoluted distribution laws which are tied to his works – this is despite his reputation as one of the most influential and brilliant people ever to work in American Cinema. As a lover of film I was understandably angered by this scenario and thus turned to file sharing to obtain many of his films including Short Cuts, The Player and Nashville. I have had similar experiences with music which I have been unable to locate through conventional means. I have listened to artists such as the French Indochine, the Belgian The Chakachas and Swedish group The Tough Alliance only because of the empowering effects of file sharing.
A counter-argument to the liberalisation brought about by file sharing is that it only further serves to entrench the dominance of Western Culture throughout the world – as the cultural vacuum formed by file sharing is most likely to be filled by Western material thus proliferating Western Culture at the expense of those with a lower profile. There is merit to this argument, especially when one considers the fact that it is those countries in the West that have the greatest access to file sharing technology. Yet technological inequality has always existed throughout the world and where the record industry created a finite space for cultural output, the space provided through file sharing is infinite. The majority of material shared peer-to-peer may be of a Western origin, but this does not come at the expense of a non-Western presence. Indeed both can co-exist due to the limitless space provided by the World Wide Wed. Whether or not we choose to broaden our cultural horizons is entirely up to the individual – but at least with the power of file sharing we always have the opportunity to do so.
mjberth 